Review: Money Monster

Money Monster is out this Friday, starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O’Connell. In the age of reboots, sequels and superheroes director Jodie Foster decides to bring an old fashioned thriller to cinema screens. How does this old school thriller size up?

Money Monster is all about Clooney’s character Lee Gates who is a television personality that predicts the rise and fall of stocks in Wall Street on his series “Money Monster”. He’s charismatic, egocentric and ridiculously over the top. Everything about this character screams douche. He doesn’t care about anyone but numero uno. The only person he seems to reasonably care about is his producer Patty Fenn (Roberts) who tries to reign him every day on their show. On this particular day Lee is to interview CEO of IBIS Walt Camby (Dominic West) after his company loses $800 million overnight. At the last moment Camby is AWOL so Lee has to go through PR rep Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) to give his fans the answers they deserve. Enter Jack O’Connells character Kyle, and s**t hits the fan as Kyle takes Lee and the whole studio hostage.

One of the key elements of Money Monster is the chemistry between our leads. O’Connell is wonderfully compelling and fun. He’s a thoroughly interesting character, and his scenes with Clooney range from the intense to the surprisingly charming. This is all thanks to the characters of Lee and Kyle. Lee is a guy you are not sure you would like if you ever met him. He’s smarmy, does some seriously idiotic things that involve terrible, terrible dance choreography which made the audience I was in laugh very hard, but not in the good way. Along with this Lee and Patty have a wonderful rapport which is clearly something both Clooney and Roberts bring from their previous movies together. Kyle is an oddly charming character and that is in no small part thanks to O’Connell who in my opinion is one of the best young talents in the industry today. He’s worked hard, all the way from his beginnings in Skins to where he is now. Caitriona Balfe is a surprisingly interesting element as I had no idea who she was before Money Monster and now I think I’ll be looking out for her in the future. She comes off snappy, charming and I was drawn to her in every scene she’s in. A notableaspect of Money Monster is that the bulk of the movie is set in this one studio with our leads. You feel slightly claustrophobic and it adds to the tension that is already been built upon.

Although there is a lot to enjoy in Money Monster it does falter with the emotional scenes as they are almost always punctuated with some poorly placed humour and this ruins some seriously emotional moments. The worst part of Money Monster comes from its conclusion as the movie decides to cop out and go for a clichéd and predictable third act. Thankfully the characters and performances elevate the final scenes because they’ve given you reason to care for these characters. Not only that but the movie feels much, much longer than it actually is. It clocks in at 98 minutes, it feels closer to 2 hours and that is not a good thing.

In the end should spend your money on Money Monster? Yes, if you’re up for an old school thriller that feels like it’s straight out of the early 00’s. Otherwise you should probably wait until it hits Netflix.

Superman enthusiast, pop culture fan and film journalist. Creator of podcast Speakin' Geek and contributor to Scannain.com, iRadio and Spin 103.8. I love talking about anything and everything(except country music, I hate country music). My views are my own and I would love to discuss them with you.